BILLED by cynics as a surprise, a new twist in the storyline of a weekly American sitcom has stirred international debate and raised eyebrows in fundamentalist quarters.
This week Ellen DeGeneres (known by her detractors as Ellen Degenerate) finally came out of the closet. For the uninitiated, DeGeneres plays Ellen Morgan, the make-up and skirt eschewing character, in a popular sitcom who has just become the first lead star of a television series to be openly gay.
The actress herself has simultaneously proclaimed the truth about her sexual orientation. Ellen is big news.
Fans of the show had been anticipating Wednesday's controversial broadcast for what seemed like an age. Ellen had been dropping hints, you see, all of which can be found on "Ellen Clues", a 15-page list, currently clogging up the World Wide Web. In addition, TV Ellen stopped dating in the last season and has been avoiding any discussions of romantic encounters ever since.
ABC bosses reckoned the ratings needed a boost and, says one of the producers, "Ellen was becoming more aware of her star power and more and more wanted her voice to be heard".
And what an ingenious way to get the undivided attention of the millions who tuned in. Perhaps fearful of a bashing by the critics, Ellen had a smattering of stars to ensure that both she and her TV alter-ego would emerge from the closet virtually unscathed.
Oprah Winfrey played her therapist and actress Laura Dern played her love interest. High-profile lesbian singers Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang also lent moral support during the hour-long episode.
"Lesbian Chic" has been gradually creeping up on the folks in what Ellen describes as "Celebrityville".
Events reached a new pinnacle last Saturday evening when in an appropriate preamble to the broadcast Ellen DeGeneres chose to go public with her new girlfriend, actress Anne Heche. The diminutive blondes cuddled, nuzzled and kissed at the glittering White House Correspondents' dinner while an obviously smitten Bill Clinton looked on.
"I wasn't going to sit on the back of the bus any more", she declared. "I belong with everyone else and that's what I finally did."
Ellen DeGeneres (pronounced duh generous) was born in 1958 in Louisiana where she grew up with deeply religious parents. Her talent for comedy appears to have been stimulated as a teenager seeking to cheer up her mother, then depressed in the wake of her parents' divorce.
Graduating from high school in 1976, she moved to New Orleans where she worked in an eclectic selection of jobs: barwoman, housepainter and vacuum saleswoman. In 1981, egged on by her friends, she made her debut performance at her local cafe's comedy hour.
Within a year she had entered and won Showtime's Funniest Person in America contest. Veteran chat show host Johnny Carson became a fan and Ellen was the first woman comic to be invited on The Tonight Show and Carson's legendary career-launching couch.
There followed a string of moderately successful TV appearances. It was 1990. She turned down a part in what was to become the hugely successful Friends and took on a tiny part in a show called Laurie Hill.
IN its original incarnation Ellen, the show, was called These Friends of Mine. Swiftly the wacky, ever-so-wry comedienne had star potential, TV moguls focused the action on her and renamed it Ellen.
Last year DeGeneres topped the best-sellers list with her book, My Point ... And Do I Have One? Fans of the witty, laid-back, bookstore-owning character in Ellen have been almost unanimously delighted with the recent revelations.
But not everybody is thrilled to see a prime-time lead in a successful sitcom seamlessly embracing a homosexual lifestyle. No less a right-wing commentator than Jerry Falwell coined the Degenerate nickname and proclaimed that Walt Disney (the company is a joint backer of the show) "must be turning in his grave".
More than 30 religious figures including Oliver North took out a full-page advertisement in Thursday's Daily Variety criticising ABC and Disney for what they said was "a slap in the face to America's families".
None of this is likely to have any effect on the affable Ellen DeGeneres. Appearing unfazed by the hyperbole, including much media analysis and a Time magazine cover, she told an interviewer recently that her decision was in no way motivated by the desire to become a spokeswoman for the gay rights movement.
"Let's get beyond this," she said. "Let's get back to what I do. Maybe I will find something even bigger to do later on. Maybe I'll become black". And maybe, just maybe, Ellen will continue to be herself, a formula that to date has been a spectacular success.